"Nothing?"
"Nothing of substance. He'd ask me how I liked school, or tell me what a pretty dress I had on. That sort of thing. But an actual conversation-I can't remember one."
"So the only parent you had was your mother and she was jealous of you. Did she love you too?"
"I think so. I know that I was ashamed of her. She was older than other kids' mothers, and she was really square. And I know I hated her for being so"-Susan smiled sadly-"nervous. But however bitchy she was, I knew she loved me. And she was always there. I trusted her, as much as I despised her. She was the one who took care of me."
"And she had her problems," I said.
"Yes," Susan said, "she had many and they were probably deep seated and my father was probably one of them."
"He fool around?" I said.
"I have no idea," Susan said. "I spent a lot of time with him, but I can't express to you how much I didn't know my father."
From the Harvard Boat House to the Larz Anderson Bridge is uphill. You never notice it driving along Soldier's Field Road. It's not very dramatic, but if it marks the last stretch of a four-mile run, it becomes more apparent.
"Well, dysfunctional or not," I said, "they produced a hell of a daughter."
"A bit dysfunctional herself."
"You think?"
"Not easy to live with," Susan said.
"Impossible to live with," I said. "But what we do works out pretty good."
"Just pretty good?"
"Masculine understatement," I said.
"Oh that," she said.
We went up the little hill and turned left across the Anderson Bridge, where I had almost died last year.
"I am being a bitch," Susan said, "about Brad Sterling."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"I don't know if I can promise not to be again."
"I know."
"Nothing breaks you, does it," Susan said. "Nothing makes you swerve."
"For crissake, Suze, I love you," I said. "I plan to continue."
"If I weren't so ladylike," she said, "I might cry."
"Isn't it sort of unladylike, anyway, to sweat like you do?" I said.
"Hey," Susan said. "Unlady-like this!"
"Of course," I said. "How could I have been so wrong."
chapter nineteen
HAWK CAME INTO my office wearing a blue blazer and white trousers.
"Been yachting?" I said.
"Ah is in disguise," Hawk said. `"The Marblehead look. Blend right in."
"Boy, you certainly fooled me," I said. "How'd it work?"
Hawk shrugged.
"Been outside the Ronan place maybe an hour when two hard cases come along."
"Cops?"
"Naw. Tough guys. A tall fat one, and a short one with muscles, no neck that I could see."
"Well, well," I said.
"Sound familiar?"
I nodded. "What did they say?"
"They want to know what I'm doing there. And I say, `Who wants to know?' And they say, `We do,' and it go sort of like that for a while. And they say if I know what's good for me that I'll haul my black ass out of there."
"That wasn't very sensitive," I said.
"I told them that."
"And?"
"Apparently they hadn't intended it to be sensitive. So, I figured since they looked a lot like two guys braced you a while ago that maybe I might have run into a whatchamacallit"
"A clue," I said.
"That's it," Hawk said, "a clue, and you being a great detective might know what to do with it. So I let them chase me away, and here I am."
"It's the same two guys," I said.
"I figure," Hawk said. "So whoever owns them not only don't want you nosing around, he don't want me."
"He or she," I said.
"That's right," Hawk said. "I was being insensitive."
"I got threatened again yesterday myself," I said.
"Astonishing," Hawk said. "And we so charming too."
"The thing is it was on a matter that Ronan shouldn't have anything to do with."
"You assuming the two stiffs I talked to work for Ronan."
"Yes," I said.
"Sonovagun," he said. "I thought so too, and I not even a great detective. Who threaten you yesterday?"
"Tall guy, sort of thin, strong looking, sharp dresser, drives a dark green Range Rover"
"You got threatened by a guy who drives a Range Rover?"
"Embarrassing, isn't it? Said his name was Richard Gavin."
Hawk shrugged.
"So many assholes," he said. "So little time."
"So I try to find out a little about the alleged sexual harassment and get threatened," I said. "And I ask you to keep an eye on Ronan and you get threatened. And while I'm trying to look into the harassment charges, I find out that Sterling's big charity thing was a bust and nobody got any money. Except that I couldn't get in touch with anyone at a beneficiary group called Civil Streets. So I try to find out a little about Civil Streets because I just stumbled across it while I'm looking into the Sterling thing, and I'm a neat guy, and I like to be thorough, and because I don't know what else to look into, and I get threatened."
Hawk was sitting in one of my office chairs with his feet up on my desk. He was wearing blue suede loafers that matched the blazer.
"I a great detective I might think there was some connection."
"If you were a great detective you might explain to me why Brad Sterling isn't around."
"Gone?"